More than an echo

Yesterday I blogged about the troubles in Eastern Europe. This part of the world has been conquered and subjugated so often that I wonder if its citizens would rather be part of an "empire", inside the safe box of being told what to do and how to do it by a much more superior power. 

Yesterday, the historical yesterday that means days, months or years, half a century, Georgia was the territory that belonged to a country in the throes of a world in turmoil. Governments, and ideologies had begun to replace dynasties. These governments promised enlightenment, a change, defending those who had never been defended. But these governments became more repressive than the czar on his throne. Despite promises of racing into the future, the fuedal system remained, until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. 

Yesterday, out of the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , a small country of different ethnic groups, led by men who had studied Western democracy , began. A proud, nationalistic country that celebrated the differences that held it together. This Czechoslovakia no longer exists. It's last president of this bygone age was driven from his homeland by 2 different tyrants. The first time he left, it was the birth of the Holocaust. He had been outplayed by people who had sworn to protect his small country. Instead they carved it into the pieces of a new empire, with a puppet government in an effort to forstall the inevitable. 

Today, we learned that peace in this part of Europe is always brokered by men who want the least amount of conflict. Again there are ethnic disputes that are being encouraged and toyed with by a more powerful country who wants to return to its emperical glory. Now as then, the man at the helm of the more powerful country has curtailed the press and the civil liberties. Today Russia retains control of the part of the country that considers itself Russian. Yesterday, the Germans had used the excuse of protecting its ethnic citizens to carve up the strongest true democracy on the contient at the time. By copying the Nazis the Russians have told the Georgians that the West will not help them. The Georgians have learned that democracy must be fought for, and if you're not strong enough than you don't deserve to be free. Because not only does Russia occupy this part of Georgia's borders, it has been given the liberty (by this Western-brokered peace deal) to intervene farther into Georgia if it deems the threat to be significant enough. Today, like yesterday, there is "Peace in our Time, " fragile now as then.